Sept. 28, 2021. There have been a few huge massive interventions that have really altered the picture of what poverty looks like in the U.S., chiefly the Great Society and the New Deal and some other things that have happened since then. And I have this pen that's called live scribe and it records sound while I'm writing. And, yeah, maybe talk a little bit about what that experience is like for her. So you mentioned There Are No Children Here. Right outside is a communal bathroom with a large industrial tub. Children are not often the face of homelessness, but their stories are heartbreaking and sobering: childhoods denied spent in and out of shelters, growing up with absent parents and often raising themselves and their siblings. And then they tried to assert control. I got a fork and a spoon. I got rice, chicken, macaroni. The fork and spoon are her parents and the macaroni her siblings - except for Baby Lee-Lee, who is a plump chicken breast. Now the bottle must be heated. It is on the fourth floor of that shelter, at a window facing north, that Dasani now sits looking out. ", I think if we look at Dasani's trajectory, we see a different kind of story. We rarely look at all the children who don't, who are just as capable. The sound that matters has a different pitch. She will tell them to shut up. Sleek braids fall to one side of Dasanis face, clipped by yellow bows. She wakes to the sound of breathing. (modern). And these bubbles get, sort of, smaller and smaller, in which people are increasingly removed from these different strata of American life. First of all, I don't rely on my own memory. Rarely does that happen for children living in poverty like Dasani who are willing and capable but who are inundated with problems not of their own making, she says. They cough or sometimes mutter in the throes of a dream. She is always warming a bottle or soothing a cranky baby. The sound of that name. PULITZER PRIZE WINNER - NATIONAL BESTSELLER - A "vivid and devastating" ( The New York Times ) portrait of an indomitable girl--from acclaimed journalist Andrea Elliott "From its first indelible pages to its rich and startling conclusion, Invisible Child had me, by turns, stricken, inspired, outraged, illuminated, in tears, and hungering Children are not the face of New Yorks homeless. And he didn't really understand what my purpose was. But especially to someone like her, who she was struggling. We rarely look at all of the children who don't, who are just as capable. Chris Hayes: --to dealing with those. I feel good. She's a hilarious (LAUGH) person. And we're gonna talk a little bit about what that number is and how good that definition is. It's why do so many not? This was north of Fort Greene park. I had an early experience of this with Muslim immigrant communities in the United States that I reported on for years. 'Cause I think it's such an important point. The journalist will never forget the first time she saw the family unit traveling in a single file line, with mother Chanel Sykes leading the way as she pushed a stroller. This focus on language, this focus on speaking a certain way and dressing a certain way made her feel like her own family culture home was being rejected. I don't want to really say what Dasani's reaction is for her. What I would say is that you just have to keep wrestling with it. Nowadays, Room 449 is a battleground. Today, Dasani lives surrounded by wealth, whether she is peering into the boho chic shops near her shelter or surfing the internet on Auburns shared computer. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. She fixes her gaze on that distant temple, its tip pointed celestially, its facade lit with promise. They have yet to stir. And she wants to be able to thrive there. WebIn Invisible Child, Pulitzer Prize winner Andrea Elliott follows eight dramatic years in the life of Dasani, a girl whose imagination is as soaring as the skyscrapers near her Brooklyn shelter. The smaller children lie tangled under coats and wool blankets, their chests rising and falling in the dark. And this ultimately wound up in the children being removed in October of 2015, about ten months into Dasani's time at Hershey. I had spent years as a journalist entering into communities where I did not immediately belong or seem to belong as an outsider. Chanel thought of Dasani. Chris Hayes: Dasani is 11 years old. The light noises bring no harm the colicky cries of an infant down the hall, the hungry barks of the Puerto Rican ladys chihuahuas, the addicts who wander the projects, hitting some crazy high. Elliotts book follows eight years in the life of They have yet to stir. In Fort Greene alone, in that first decade, we saw the portion of white residents jump up by 80%. What's interesting about that compared to Dasani, just in terms of what, sort of, concentrated poverty is like in the 1980s, I think, when that book is being reported in her is that proximity question. Now you are a very halal Muslim leader. Now the bottle must be heated. Public assistance. Named after the bottled water that signaled Brooklyns gentrification, her story has been featured in five front pages of the New York Times. Dasani was in many ways a parent to her seven younger brothers and sisters. Elliott first met Dasani, her parents and her siblings in Brooklyns Fort Greene neighborhood in 2012. And that's the sadness I found in watching what happened to their family as it disintegrated at the hands of these bigger forces. And then their cover got blown and that was after the series ran. She is tiny for an 11-year-old and quick to startle. Chris Hayes: I want to, sort of, take a step back because I want to continue with what you talk about as, sort of, these forces and the disintegration of the family and also track through where Dasani goes from where she was when she's 11. They wound up being placed at Auburn. I read the book out to the girls. Of all the distressing moments in Invisible Child, Andrea Elliotts book about Dasani Coates, the oldest of eight children growing up in a homeless shelter in New I have a lot of possibility. Dasani would call it my spy pen. You know, it was low rise projects. Just the sound of it Dasani conjured another life. And I just wonder, like, how you thought about it as you went through this project. Tweet us with the hashtag #WITHpod, email WITHpod@gmail.com. WebBrowse, borrow, and enjoy titles from the PALS Plus NJ OverDrive Library digital collection. She had been born in March, shattering the air with her cries. Of all the distressing moments in Invisible Child, Andrea Elliotts book about Dasani Coates, the oldest of eight children growing up in a homeless shelter in New (LAUGH) She would try to kill them every week. She's studying business administration, which has long been her dream. And welcome to Why Is This Happening? To watch these systems play out in Dasanis life is to glimpse not only their flaws, but the threat they pose to Dasanis system of survival. Lee-Lees cry was something else. How did you respond? This is an extract She will focus in class and mind her manners in the schoolyard. This is Serena McMahon Twitter Digital ProducerSerena McMahon was a digital producer for Here & Now. But she told me, and she has told me many times since, that she loves the book. Try to explain your work as much as you can." And that would chase off the hunger faster. When braces are the stuff of fantasy, straight teeth are a lottery win. Chapter 1. WebInvisible Child, highlights the life struggles of eleven-year-old Dasani Coates, a homeless child living with her family in Brooklyn, New York. No. Andrea Elliott is a investigative reporter at The New York Times, (BACKGROUND MUSIC) a Pulitzer Prize winner. Where is Dasani now? Parental neglect, failure to provide necessities for ones children like shelter or clothing, is one form of child maltreatment that differs from child abuse, she says. So I work very closely with audio and video tools. Come on, says her mother, Chanel, who stands next to Dasani. Don't their future adult selves have a right to privacy (LAUGH) in a sense? And so I did what I often do as a journalist is I thought, "You know, let me find a universal point of connection. Then she sets about her chores, dumping the mop bucket, tidying her dresser, and wiping down the small fridge. Bed bugs. WebRT @usaunify: When Dasani Left Home. Elliott spent I have a lot on my plate, she likes to say, cataloging her troubles like the contents of a proper meal. No one on the block can outpace Dasani. Note: This is a rough transcript please excuse any typos. Now in her 20s, Dasani became the first in her immediate family to graduate high school, and she enrolled in classes at LaGuardia Community College. And they agreed to allow me to write a book and to continue to stay in their lives. And it was just a constant struggle between what Dasani's burdens have imposed on her and the limitless reach of her potential if she were only unburdened. They loved this pen and they would grab it from me (LAUGH) and they would use it as a microphone and pretend, you know, she was on the news. But you know what a movie is. The 10-year-olds next: Avianna, who snores the loudest, and Nana, who is going blind. Tweet us at the hashtag #WITHPod. Multiply her story by thousands of children in cities across the U.S. living through the same experiences and the country confronts a crisis. And so I also will say that people would look at Dasani's family from the outside, her parents, and they might write them off as, you know, folks with a criminal record. And as I started to, kind of, go back through it, I remember thinking, "How much has really changed?" At Hershey, I feel like a stranger, like I really don't belong. (LAUGH) Like those kinds of, like, cheap colognes. You have piano lessons and tutoring and, of course, academics and all kinds of athletic resources. And to each of those, sort of, judgments, Dasani's mother has an answer. Then the New York Times published Invisible Child, a series profiling a homeless girl named Dasani. And just exposure to diversity is great for anyone. She was 11 years old. It happens because there's a lot of thought and even theory, I think, put into the practice. But the spacial separation of Chicago means that they're not really cheek and jowl next to, you know, $3 million town homes or anything like that. Elliott She's had major ups and major downs. By the time most schoolchildren in New York City are waking up to go to school, Dasani had been working for probably two hours. Coca Cola had put it out a year earlier. Paired with photographs by colleague Ruth Fremson , it sparked direct action from incoming Mayor Bill DeBlasio, who had Dasani on the stage at his administrations inauguration in January 2014. I mean, this was a kid who had been, sort of, suddenly catapulted on to the front page of The New York Times for five days. And it really was for that clientele, I believe. Each spot is routinely swept and sprayed with bleach and laid with mousetraps. But I think she just experienced such an identity crisis and she felt so much guilt. And then I wanted to find a target in New York, a good focal point in New York. The problems of poverty are so much greater, so much more overwhelming than the power of being on the front page of The New York Times. Dasani Coates photographed in September last year. Then the series ran at the end of 2013. I would be off in the woods somewhere writing and I would call her. And I was trying to get him to agree to let me in for months at a time. And There Are No Children Here, which takes place in what's called Henry Horner Homes, which is in the west side of Chicago right by what is now called the United Center, which is where the Bulls play. But what about the ones who dont? Whenever this happens, Dasani starts to count. To an outsider, living in Fort Greene, you might think, "Oh, that's the kid that lives at the homeless shelter. And she just loved that. She is in that shelter because of this, kind of, accumulation of, you know, small, fairly common, or banal problems of the poor that had assembled into a catastrophe, had meant not being able to stay in the section eight housing. She held the Bible for Tish James, the incoming then-public advocate who held Dasani's fist up in the air and described her to the entire world as, "My new BFF.". Together with her siblings, Dasani has had to persevere in an environment riddled with stark inequality, hunger, violence, drug addiction and homelessness. A movie has scenes. We suffocate them with the salt!. That's so irresponsible." It's helping them all get through college. In the book, the major turning points are, first of all, where the series began, that she was in this absolutely horrifying shelter just trying to survive. And that's really true of the poor. By the time I got to Dasani's family, I had that stack and I gave it to them. Who paid for water in a bottle? There are several things that are important to know about this neighborhood and what it represents. In this moving but occasionally flat narrative, Elliott follows Dasani for eight years, beginning in 2012 when she was 11 years old and living in How did you feel, you know, about the pipe that's leaking?" And it's the richest private school in America. How you get out isn't the point. Had been the subject of tremendous amounts of redlining and disinvestment and panic peddling that had essentially chased white homeowners out. Slipping out from her covers, Dasani goes to the window. It's called Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival, and Hope in an American City. The ground beneath her feet once belonged to them. She lives in a house run by a married couple. Beyond the shelters walls, in the fall of 2012, Dasani belongs to an invisible tribe of more than 22,000 homeless children the highest number ever recorded, in the most unequal metropolis in America. Her city is paved over theirs. But, of course, there's also the story of poverty, which has been a durable feature of American life for a very long time. There are more than 22,000 homeless children in New York, the highest number since the Great Depression. It gave the young girl a feeling that theres something out there, Elliott says. Their voucher had expired. It's unpredictable. Anyway, and I said, "Imagine I'm making a movie about your life. So by the time I got to Dasani's family, this was a very different situation. It was this aspiration that was, like, so much a part of her character. A movie has characters." And so they had a choice. There are parts of it that are painful. The only way to do this is to leave the room, which brings its own dangers. I saw in Supreme and in Chanel a lot of the signs of someone who is self-medicating. People who have had my back since day one. And we can talk about that more. Among them is Dasanis birthplace, Fort Greene, Brooklyn, where renovated townhouses come with landscaped gardens and heated marble floors. And it also made her indispensable to her parents, which this was a real tension from the very beginning. This is the type of fact that nobody can know. And that's very clear in the context of her parents here. Paired with photographs by colleague Ruth And I could never see what the next turn would be. One of the first things Dasani will say is that she was running before she walked. This is usually the sound that breaks Dasanis trance, causing her to leave the window and fetch Lee-Lees bottle. WebA work of luminous and riveting prose, Elliott's Invisible Child reads like a page-turning novel. You're gonna get out of your own lane and go into other worlds. Homeless services. The invisible child of the title is Dasani Coates. (LAUGH), Chris Hayes: You know? (LAUGH) I don't know what got lost in translation there. Almost half of New Yorks 8.3 million residents are living near or below the poverty line. You know, my fridge was always gonna be stocked. Baby Lee-Lee has yet to learn about hunger, or any of its attendant problems. When she left New York City, her loved ones lost a crucial member of the family, and in her absence, things fell apart. Dasani landed at 39 Auburn Place more than two years ago. So thats a lot on my plate with some cornbread. It's still too new of a field of research to say authoritatively what the impact is, good or bad, of gentrification on long term residents who are lower income. Just a few blocks from townhouses that were worth millions of dollars. A concrete walkway leads to the lobby, which Dasani likens to a jail. And then I was like, "I need to hear this. The thumb-suckers first: six-year-old Hada and seven-year-old Maya, who share a small mattress. After that, about six months after the series ran, I continued to follow them all throughout. And the translator would translate and was actually showing this fly. And so you can get braces. In the blur of the citys streets, Dasani is just another face. Best to try to blend in while not caring when you dont. So this was the enemy. Jane Clayson Guest Host, Here & NowJane Clayson is Here & Now's guest host. And I think what I would say is that there are no easy answers to this. She saw this ad in a glossy magazine while she was, I believe, at a medical clinic. Dasani gazes out of the window from the one room her family of 10 shared in the Brooklyn homeless shelter where they lived for almost four years. Two sweeping sycamores shade the entrance, where smokers linger under brick arches. So I think that is what's so interesting is you rightly point out that we are in this fractured country now. It's a really, really great piece of work. (LAUGH) Because they ate so much candy, often because they didn't have proper food. And in my local bodega, they suddenly recently added, I just noticed this last night, organic milk. WebBrowse, borrow, and enjoy titles from the MontanaLibrary2Go digital collection. And she tried to stay the path. The Child Protection Agency began monitoring Dasanis parents on suspicion of parental neglect, Elliott says. Andrea Elliott: I didn't really have a beat. Like, you could tell the story about Jeff Bezos sending himself into space. I live in Harlem. Invisible Child emerged from a series on poverty Elliott wrote for the New York Times in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and the Occupy Wall Street movement. She's passing through. IE 11 is not supported. What's your relationship with her now and what's her reaction to the book? She would wake up. Radiating out from them in all directions are the eight children they share: two boys and five girls whose beds zigzag around the baby, her crib warmed by a hairdryer perched on a milk crate.
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